News

Indigenous Voice to Parliament must be our constitutional priority: ALA

30th Nov 2018

The Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) has welcomed the parliamentary report that supports constitutional recognition for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

“After eight years of consultation, and the Uluru Statement from the Heart, this reform must be our constitutional priority,” said ALA President, Ms Noor Blumer.

“The proposed approach to creating the ‘Voice to Parliament’ will constitutionally empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but at the same time it respects parliamentary supremacy and upholds the Constitution.

“We are pleased to see that both the process of truth-telling and the establishment of a national resting place for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s remains have also been recommended by the Committee.

“The Australian legal system has disempowered and marginalised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for too long.

“We can see the effects of this every day in the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in prisons and detention centres, and in the way the law has been used to break up their families.

“Our legal system has often failed to adequately represent Indigenous people and we believe that the recommendations in the Uluru Statement from the Heart are sensible, pragmatic and legally moderate.”